Hera’s MDT – Day 28: What are the worst misconceptions about Hera?

Today’s topic is about the worst misconceptions about Hera. I have already touched upon this, extensively sometimes, in other posts, but I’ll recapitulate here a bit.

The single most egregious misconception about Hera is that she is nothing but a jealous, raging bitch who needs to chill the fuck out with her going after Zeus’s lovers and their bastard offspring. That she should instead direct her anger at Zeus for his infidelity, his abusiveness, and his rapy-ness (yeah, people go there). This is simply the worst misconception of Hera out there (as well as about Zeus), and the most damaging to her worship. It’ll be a long time before we manage to work this misconception out of the world, as in, probably not within the lifetime of anyone currently alive.

A close second would be almost the opposite, that she’s a prudish shrew who needs to loosen the fuck up about her husband philandering and who should probably just start doing the same. This is almost as egregious a misconception, though in my mind slightly less so because the afore mentioned one is the one I come across most often.

These are severe misconceptions about Hera – and Zeus, as well – that we see so often in popular culture, from people outside of our religion. Particularly from non-polytheists, as other polytheists will generally understand that the Hellenic myths shouldn’t be taken at face value any more than those of their own pantheon.

2 comments on “Hera’s MDT – Day 28: What are the worst misconceptions about Hera?”

Both of these misconceptions stem from a fundamental lack of desire to understand Hera’s nature as well as both the stories about her and the culture she inhabited.

One theory suggests that Zeus’ “affairs” were labeled that way after he “married” the Mycenaean queen of the Gods and actually represented a conquering sky god taking the main local goddesses as sacred spouses.

The second ignores that for Hera to cuckold Zeus would be to go against her own role as guardian of marriage